


Twists and turns [everything leads back to you eventually]

by arinadie



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftermath, Anger, Bad Decisions, Exhaustion, Other, Regret, dealing, let them live they're just tired and sad, muder investigations, murder but also love, strange methods of dealing with problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 14:32:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13009857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arinadie/pseuds/arinadie
Summary: It goes like this:He doesn't even make a sound. It’s three AM and the streets are deserted, the alley somehow even more so. Blood runs along the damp pavement and his legs give out as he flails his arms, grasping at nothing.The fear is his eyes as his life drains away isn’t beautiful or poetic, but anyone can agree that the bastard had it coming, and he deserved everything he got.





	Twists and turns [everything leads back to you eventually]

**Author's Note:**

> nice. I don't really write for these guys anymore but that's fine. tbh idk how anyone's gonna find and read this thing because it's an original work and I can't tag for shit but that fine.

It goes like this:

 

He doesn't even make a sound. It’s three AM and the streets are deserted, the alley somehow even more so. Blood runs along the damp pavement and his legs give out as he flails his arms, grasping at nothing.

 

The fear is his eyes as his life drains away isn’t beautiful or poetic, but anyone can agree that the bastard had it coming, and he deserved everything he got.

一

The door closes with a bang and Jason can hear a thud and a clang of keys and a bag hitting the floor before Marys flops onto his chest, discarding his book, and falling asleep in approximately three seconds flat. Eli takes a little more time, unloading the groceries in the kitchen and slowly making his way to the couch. curling up with his head on Marys’s thighs, his left hand finding Jason’s before his eyes flutter closed. Marys makes sense, she's been training and fighting all day, perfecting her already-perfect magic and hand to hand combat as fun but demanding work training others for the one thing she knows better than anyone else. Eli a little less, but he's been in class all week and he probably just misses them. Training to be a veterinarian is tough and requires quite a bit of tlc, but overall there isn’t anything else they can picture Eli doing. On the other hand, Jason's had most of the week off. Only a couple hour-long shifts at the forge, and is completely awake, his book just out of his reach on the hardwood floor. He moves his unoccupied hand to run it in circles on Marys’s bare shoulder, and settles in to just daydream and relax with them when he can.

一

It goes like this:

 

In the last few days of April, the snow begins to thaw and the triple-bagged body beneath the sewer gate on marigold ave starts to smell. It's hard to tell how long it's been there, but it's New York so nobody really cares. The body arrives at the coroner's office tagged John Doe and weeks pass before anyone does anything about it.

 

The body turns out to be Omar Dellis, 36 Caucasian male, not immediate family and no romantic partner. He was reported missing two months ago by one of his coworkers and his boss, some hotshot from new jersey, wants answers. Detective Leonheart sighs, and gets to work.

一

There's a green and gold abstract painting in the living room that they always fight over. Marys wants it closer to the window so that the gold paint shines pretty patterns on the wall, Jason wants it in the hallway that goes to the kitchen, he thinks the wall is too bare. Eli doesn't want the painting at all and would prefer to throw it out or sell it, but if it had to stay, he likes it in the living room.

 

As usual, it stays in where it is.

一

Blue sparks flash momentarily around the fingers that Marys’s tapping against the table in the interrogation room, so small Connie Leonheart would have missed them if she didn't know to look. She's still in her gym clothes, tight fitting bandages still wound around her hands, protecting her knuckles. she looks tired, and she refused a lawyer.

 

“I don't have time for this Shit Connie” she says, her eyebrow raised as she continues tapping her fingers against the desk, resting her head on her hand. “you know I didn't do it.”

 

While the FBI agent sitting in the chair next to her is poorly concealing how much he’s underestimating her, Connie isn't taking things so lightly. Marys may look kind, no amount of scars and callouses and rough patches seem to change it, but Connie remembers.

 

She remembers how easily her eyes hardened, how amazed she was that such a scared girl can do what she does until she realized Marys wasn't scared at all. Connie remembers blood soaked hands tight on metal handles and the shine of a blade as it tore clean through bone. She remembers deafening cheers and sickly sweet smiles and _no one makes it outta here alive Connie, not even you._

 

She didn't do it.

 

Connie takes a deep breath and walks out the door.

一

Jason ended up working in a forge. It's a strange job, and very uncommon in 2017 but it fits, and Jason's _good_ at it. He says he likes it because of the joy of creation, the satisfaction of turning a hunk of metal into something else entirely, Marys and Eli say it's just an excuse to flex his muscles and swear all day.

 

His team consists of two Bulgarian men who only speak a heavily bastardized version of English, Jason’s skill with metal and his fluency in Russian makes them fast friends.  

 

It's a Saturday when Connie shown up at the door, a cop car behind her and two bulky FBI agents holding handguns at her sides. One of Jason's teammates spits at her feet and the anger is their eyes would be intimidating if Connie was anyone other than who she is. They all know who she's here for.

 

“This is bullshit Connie” he says and his eyes are steely, piercing. He sounds tired. Connie doesn't care.

 

“Our witnesses say you were seen having ‘aggressive altercations’ with Omar Dellis three months ago, when you held him at knifepoint and had to be physically restrained to avoid any unseemly activities in an alleyway,” she says, Connie's voice is sharp and to the point. Her business voice, if you will.

 

“I have ‘ _aggressive altercations_ ’ with people every other month Connie, you can't give me shit for that”

 

“Yes, but none of those people beat and tried to kill your sister-in-law before she miraculously disappeared and ended up reuniting with your younger sister who was only very recently proclaimed ‘no longer missing’ in official government databases”

 

Jason snarls at that, lurching forward and ending with his face inches away from Connie's, “that motherfucking bastard deserved everything he got. Every God. Damned. Thing. _”_ he snarls and he doesn't even blink as he’s cuffed, there’s a sense of finality to his tone that sets Connie on edge.

 

Jason walks to the cop car looking like anything but a criminal. His head held high and his shoulders relaxed and completely At ease. His eyes are honest but hard, almost smouldering. Connie has done this enough to know what a dead man looks like, but in this moment, she feels almost as if _she's_ the one that's going to end up in a prison cell.

一

Jason locks eyes with Connie as he gets into Eli’s car.  They're bringing him back for questioning in two days but this session remained fruitless. Its sad because Connie knows, deep down, that the four of them could have been the best of friends once. The ring does terrible terrible things to you but the one good that can come out of it is you have to make connections to survive.

 

If the circumstances had been different, she thinks, maybe things would have been better. Maybe she would’ve never had to see the look on Marys’s face when she let Vivian die, maybe she never would have felt the sharp sting of Jason’s fist on her cheek weeks later or watched as Eli crumpled, shaky hands clutching the lifeless form of his older sister. If things had been different maybe she would have been in the ring with them, maybe she would have been a fighter instead of hiding behind grand titles and fake smiles. She’d always had a soft spot for the fighters, known somehow in her heart that what they were being forced to do was wrong. It’s why she is who she is today, finally seeing the error in her ways and trying to repent. _Doesn’t fuckin bring viv back though does it?_ Marys had mumbled around the rim of her fifth glass of whisky in a dimly lit bar years ago, back when connie was drunk and stupid enough to feel entitled to forgiveness. That was the first and last time she brought Vivan up again.

 

Nowadays Connie knows it wouldn’t work, there's too much pain and bad blood between them to ever form something other than their halted acquaintanceship, a truce as it were. Sometimes though, Connie will lose herself in her thoughts and dream of a universe where things turn out differently. If there's one thing she can actually feel remorse about, it’s this.

一

The next morning, Eli wakes up to an empty bed. It's not an unusual occurrence, both Jason and Marys are too used to waking  up early to break the habit, Marys from her life as the ring’s champion and Jason from a life of taking as many part time jobs as he could to keep himself and his sister alive. Although sometimes the two of them just lay in bed with him, enjoying the warmth and the comfort for a while longer. Eli’s lucky, or, compared to Jason and Marys, he is. Born without magic and therefore rendered useless in the ring when his sister was forced to compete. They put him to task elsewhere, in less dangerous environments Little did they know Vivian still taught him all she knew. Nevertheless his nights are the least plagued with nightmares and bad memories, so he counts himself grateful and makes his way down the hallway to the kitchen.

 

There's faint music playing on the crappy old portable radio Jason bought on impulse in a pawn shop in tokyo a few years back. Some kind of soft ukulele and a foreign singer crooning out slow syrupy words. Marys has her back to the window, a cup of tea in her hands and Eli’s sweater slipping off her shoulder. Jason’s swaying to the music as he makes grilled cheese - a saturday tradition -  his coffee mug sitting on the windowsill. It’s one of Eli’s favorite things about his mornings, it’s a constant reminder of the fact that he never thought he'd get here. All Eli had ever known was the ring, it makes sense he thought he’d die there as well.

 

“Connie’s taking you back to the hell hole tommorrow, yea?”

 

Jason doesn’t startle, but his grip goes tight on the spatula he’s holding for a second before he relaxes and turns around, already rolling his eyes.

 

“ They said the interrogation was _‘inconclusive’_ and that i had to come back for _‘further questioning_ ” he mocks, waving the spatula in the air, “it's such a load of bullshit honestly, they won't even let me go back to the forge”

 

“And we all know how you _love_ the forge” Marys drawls teasingly as she sets her mug down and slips off the counter and into into Eli’s arms. It’s an age old joke that somehow never fails to irk Jason in some way, he tends to be pretty protective of his inferno of a workplace. Today however, he settles on levelling marys with _the look_ and going back to making their breakfast.

 

Eli sets to making his own cup of coffee in an eggshell blue mug jason’s mom got him last christmas and settles himself in between Marys’s legs, who had gone back to her original spot on the counter. The sun’s already risen but the kitchen still has that peaceful, still feel to it, like they're the only ones awake.

 

Saturday mornings, Eli has long since decided, are always going to be one of the best parts of his week.

一

They bring Eli in for questioning once, in the  early stages of the investigation. He was out the interrogation room in less than half an hour and on his way to campus an hour before his classes started. He’d been taken off the suspect list a day after and it'd never been brought up again.

一

Connie leans against the brick alleyway outside the fbi building, Jason’s to her left, fingering the burn scar on his right forearm as she smokes a cigarette. She remembers the night he got it, she remembers a lot of things. Like the gold necklace she found on her doorstep that morning, faded bloodstains and all. There's no mistaking what it is, a warning, a memento mori, an omen of death. There’s no mistaking who it came from either, and it's not the man beside her.

 

She turns the pendant over and over in her unoccupied hand, her finger running circles around the polished piece of amethyst in the centre. It’s a pretty necklace, seemingly delicate but surprisingly sturdy. It's a good reminder, of things that have already passed and things that have yet to come, and Connie sighs.

 

“I know who did it” her voice barely above a whisper. It doesn’t matter though, jason will ear her, he always does.

 

“I do too”

一

It goes like this:

 

Eighteen  years ago a seven year old Vivian Molina looked at the frail form of Marys Roscoe and three things ran through her head.

 

Vivian thought: _she’s the_ _same age as my brother._

 

Vivian thought: _dead in a week._

 

Vivian thought: _she doesn't deserve this._

 

Sixteen years ago Marys jumped into the ring and killed all five of Vivian's opponents, effectively saving Vivian’s life and condemning herself to twenty lashings along the length of her seven year old back. Two days later, when Marys got back from her latest fight in the ring, Vivian caught her arm and whispered _why did you do it?_ Eli brushed past her and said _thank you._ And both times Marys paused for a second before walking away

 

The unspoken _don’t fucking underestimate me again_ was answer enough.

 

Thirteen years ago Jason got a job cleaning up the ring after particularly bloody matches and helped Marys drag several unconscious beginners off the sands and back to their quarters. Jason took one look at the scars along Marys’s back and said _what can I do to help?_

 

Later, after Marys had levelled him with a glare that could intimidate even the most apathetic man in existence and he’d ran away with tail between legs, Eli pulled him into a shadowy alcove.

 

He said: _she doesn’t actually mean it ya know._

 

He said: _there's not much you can do for her anyways._

 

He said: _in this world, vulnerability means death._

 

Ten years ago Marys had to be held back by five of the older fighters as a sword ran through Vivian’s chest and her blood splattered on the already soaked floorboards of the ring. It was the first and last time anyone ever saw her cry, hands shaking entwined with her mentor’s before Eli sunk to his knees beside her and Marys knew she had to act now or Vivian wouldn’t be the only one to die in the ring that day.

 

Days and even years later you’ll still hear whispers of the warlock so angry and grief stricken she shook the very heavens as she avenged her lost sister in arms. In truth, Marys destroyed half of the building before they managed to get the magic restricting cuffs on her, and was sentenced to fight a match every single day for as long as she was alive. It was much less glorious that the stories made it out to be.

 

Six years ago Marys slit her bosses throat and pitched his body out the window, six years ago Marys looked Connie in the eyes and said _get out of my sight_. six years ago Marys, Eli, Jason and countless others walked free from the shackles they’d had to bear for most of their lives and thrust themselves into the real world with vigour.

 

A week ago Eli found jason sitting on the fire escape, staring down at the bright light of a city he never thought he’d be happy in. It's hard to understand something you’ve never been through but they all know that understanding isn’t what matters, it isn’t what they need. So Eli sits beside him and leans against his shoulder, settling his nose in the crook of jason’s neck and just breathes. Breathes until jason's hand comes to pull him in closer and he feels wet splashes of tears running down jason’s cheeks and he knows he’ll be ok.

一

A month later Connie closes the case, gold necklace heavy in her back pocket, due to _‘insufficient evidence’_ and it’s pushed to the back of the file cabinet in lieu of bigger, better things.

 

Connie Leonheart takes a week off, surprising all her coworkers. In the years she’d been a detective Ms Leonhart had never used any of ver vacation days save for one cold, autumn saturday she called in sick. As she steps off the bus and heads up the countryside road to her cousin’s beach house Connie feels as if she can finally breathe again.

 

If there's one thing she will always feel, it’s regret. For everything she did and did not do and everything she wanted to do but couldn’t. All these years there's been something she’s been trying to figure out, something she’d been missing. It’s plagued her conscious and unconscious mind for hours on end, the fear that one day she would figure out the answer and she wouldn’t even _know_ because she has no idea what she’s missing.

 

Standing on the hillside, thought, sea breeze in her hair and watching the gold necklace fall into the water without a sound. Connie thinks she finally understands.

一

“I can’t believe you’d go to jail for me”

 

Marys snorts, her cheek resting on Eli’s hipbone, he feels the vibration run down his side before she shifts so her chin is digging into his stomach. He feels the arm Jason has around him shift as he sets his book down and looks at him. They’re all drowsy, Marys has been napping on and off for the past half hour and the lines of Jason’s book had started to blur together, they were all barely holding on to their consciousness.

 

“Why wouldn’t I” is all jason can respond with as he slides down from his position against the headboard to curl himself around Eli’s shoulder, chin resting on his gold curls. “You’d kill for us so i'm pretty sure we’re even”

 

Eli’s silence doesn’t go unnoticed so Marys wriggles her way up his torso, ending halfway on top of him, nose just underneath his ear. “It goes like this babe, you do something for us we do something for you, we protect each other and all that bullshit ya know?” she’s mumbling and swearing much more than needed but somehow it's the most comforting thing Eli’s ever heard in his entire life, “just trust us ok? We love you”

 

A grunt from jason is all the confirmation Eli needs before letting himself fall asleep, his eyes catching on the matching gold necklace he and his sister had hanging above the window, illuminated in the moonlight.

 


End file.
